His Image

Gen.1:^26-27 “Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign… So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (emphasis added).

Jesus says in John 8:²⁸ “…. I do nothing on my own but say only what the Father taught me.” Jesus is the express image of the invisible God. Guess what? We are also created in His image. I want you to do an exercise today, stand in front of the mirror and lift up your right hand. If you lift up your right hand and your mirror image does not move, please call your Life Group leader. I will be sleeping because I have done my job, I have preached the Word. Jokes aside, this helps us better understand when Jesus says, ‘Of my own, I can do nothing, but I reflect the movement of My Father. Therefore, when you disobey Me, you are not disobeying Me, you are disobeying the Father because it is not Me. I am just a reflection of Him.’ I hope you are getting this.

John 8:^23-24 “Jesus continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You belong to this world; I do not. That is why I said that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am who I claim to be, you will die in your sins.” Can you see the discourse and the exchanges, can you see Jesus’ effrontery and the audacity in laying His claims and speaking it to their faces? I can imagine Jesus saying that and you can see that this is not consistent with Jesus’ non-condemnatory nature. But the truth is that Jesus was not speaking condemnation but rather He was speaking light. If something is dirty, once light comes, it is still dirty there is no other way of describing it. So, because it is light and it says it is dirty, is that condemnation? No, it is just revelation. There is a burden on people that bring light. Eze.3:¹⁸ “If I warn the wicked, saying, ‘You are under the penalty of death,’ but you fail to deliver the warning, they will die in their sins. And I will hold you responsible for their deaths.” Jesus’ position was that of one who is responsible.

So now let’s back up to the story of the woman caught in adultery. John 8:^3-5 “As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery.  The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” That was not true. The law of Moses did not say to stone her, the law of Moses said put her to death. The Law did not say how, it was the Pharisees that preferred to stone people. They said they caught her in the act of adultery, where is the man she committed the crime with? Someone said the man is a Pharisee, so they allowed him to go free. You cannot catch a woman in the act of adultery alone, it does not work like that. But that is not where we are going. The truth is, these men all came with stones and they put the woman in the middle. The stones in their hands were not for the woman, the stones were for Jesus even though they would not mind stoning her with Jesus. When the enemy comes against you, it is really not about you but about the image of God in you. The enemy hates your Father and when he sees you, you remind him of your Father.

Prayer: Father, I will function as Your image, defend me as Your image, in Jesus Name. Amen!